By UW-Stout News Bureau
A campus-wide change instituted in 2012 to reduce waste at the University of Wisconsin-Stout is continuing to pay big dividends.
Recently released figures for 2014 show that for the third straight year the amount of campus waste dropped significantly. Trash collection in 2011 was 1.25 million pounds. In 2014 it was 550,000 pounds.
Over the three-year period, that’s a 56 percent decrease in the amount of trash collected on the Menomonie campus.
In 2012 the university removed trash cans from all classrooms and meeting rooms. In their place, sets of three bins for recycling, compost and trash were placed in hallways and entrances to buildings.
“Since that program began we’ve been significantly reducing our trash and increasing our compost and recycling,” said Sarah Rykal, sustainability coordinator at UW-Stout.
With waste collection down, the amount of compost material collected since the start of 2012 has jumped from 129,000 to 326,000 pounds. The amount of recyclables collected has increased from 35,000 pounds to 183,000 pounds.
In 2014, UW-Stout collected almost as much recycling and compost material as it did trash.
Last spring, UW-Stout finished 24th nationally and first in the state in the national “Recyclemania” contest. UW-Stout led all competing colleges in Wisconsin by a wide margin.
Rykal, who oversees UW-Stout’s Sustainability Office, credits students, faculty and staff for being vigilant and helping make UW-Stout a UW System leader in the area of sustainability.
“Our campus is doing an amazing job of reducing our overall waste,” she said.